Sportsman turns love of turkey hunting into a business

Lyle Gilbert lives in Tuscaloosa County, so naming his line of turkey calls and deer grunt calls Houndstooth Game Calls isn’t all that surprising.

By Robert DeWittOutdoors Writer

TUSCALOOSA | Lyle Gilbert lives in Tuscaloosa County, so naming his line of turkey calls and deer grunt calls Houndstooth Game Calls isn’t all that surprising.“We live here in Tuscaloosa and we love our life in Tuscaloosa,” Gilbert said. “I didn’t want to name it Gilbert’s Game Calls because it sounds funny. When somebody sees this name, they say, ‘Hey, you’re from Tuscaloosa.’”What might be surprising is that Gilbert grew up an Auburn fan. His father was an Auburn graduate and he cheered for the orange and blue as a youngster.But when he moved to Tuscaloosa, his neighbors across the street were Alabama football players, the Britt Brothers, Wesley, Justin and Taylor, Justin Smiley and others Crimson Tide fans will recognize. When he came home in the evenings, he’d find them playing with his kids in the front yard.“It’s hard not to feel something for a team when you see that,” he said. “It kind of molded me into the Alabama fan I am now. My kids have grown up Alabama fans.”He hopes fans of all stripes — Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, LSU and the rest — all use his calls. Custom callmaking is the latest manifestation of his lifelong obsession with turkey hunting.“I love turkey hunting,” Gilbert said. “There’s nothing like killing a turkey with something you made with your own hands.”Gilbert grew up in Demopolis and Columbiana. He spent a lot of time in one of West Alabama’s hunting hotspots, Belmont in Sumter County, hanging out at his grandmother’s store. The late Frances Spidle owned Belmont Grocery, which doled out Cokes, Vienna Sausages and beer to hunters from throughout Alabama.As a kid, he roamed 3,000 acres of leased land near Columbiana with his father chasing turkeys. His father was the district forester for Gulf States Paper Corp., now The Westervelt Company, in Shelby County.“He would take me every afternoon after school and he’d take me every morning before school,” Gilbert said. “I was just lucky enough to have a dad who never said ‘no’ when I wanted to go turkey hunting.”He was already involved with the sport when its popularity exploded in the 1990s.“I really just got knee deep in it when I was in junior college and started guiding hunters for a lodge in Mississippi,” Gilbert said. “I’m still guiding on that property. I’ve been there so long, it’s kind of like going home.”Gilbert started working with calls because the ones he bought always seemed to leave something to be desired. They wore out quickly and never did exactly what he wanted them to do.In 2010, he turned it into a business. Houndstooth Game Calls produces about 4,000 mouth calls a year, and this year introduced a line of friction calls. The mouth calls sell for $8.99 apiece online at his website www.houndstoothgamecalls.com and in retail stores, including Second Season and Woods and Water locally. Friction calls sell for $49.99.Both the pots for the friction calls and deer grunt calls are made out of osage orange, also known as mock orange, ironwood and bodock. It’s an extremely hard wood but produces a unique sound.“There is nothing like osage orange for acoustics,” he said. “It’s like making a musical instrument. If it’s too thick or too thin, it’s not going to work. You’re making music with a peg. The sound and resonance must be right.”Gilbert credits Alan Maddox with enabling him to make turkey calls. Maddox is a master woodworker and taught the craft to Gilbert.“He gave me the resources I needed,” Gilbert said. “He taught me woodworking so that I can put things I see into production. He’s been one of my biggest helpers.”There’s more to making a turkey call than grinding out the basic shape. For the mouth call, the latex has to be stretched to exact tensions. Gilbert uses the tension designed for competition callers.Friction calls must be sanded to exact thicknesses.“One ten-thousandth or 1/20,000 you can’t see with your eye,” Gilbert said. “But it makes a difference. Building turkey calls is a lot like surgery. It’s precise. We use micrometers in everything we do from stretching the diaphragm calls down to the wood working. It’s all in accurately reproducing something. That provides consistency. Even your glues are a big part of it.”And it took a lot of trial and error. But he found what he liked and was able to reproduce it.“I’ve done so many and failed so many times that when it really works it even surprises me,” he saidThat’s part of the pleasure he gets from making turkey calls. They are not mass produced. Each one is hand-made.“Each one of the friction calls has been yelped on by me,” Gilbert said. “If they don’t cut it with me, they become a drink coaster at the camp. Not every blank of wood is going to be a call. If I outsourced them, I’d get what I got and that would be it.”The friction calls have a pot, a striking surface and a sounding board. Gilbert mixes materials with glass and slate striking surfaces and glass, slate and wood sounding boards.Gilbert’s wife, Summer, his 14-year-old stepson, Chase Sparkman, and even 6-year-old son Drake Gilbert, help out. Summer is a big help with organization, he said.Making turkey calls fits in well with Gilbert’s lifestyle. His day job is forester and timber buyer for Southern Timber Products in Greensboro.“All of my clientele are turkey hunters. I love buying timber,” Gilbert said. “What goes better with buying timber than having your turkey calls with you? It’s great to be able to pull up to a client’s house and be able to talk about timber buying and turkey hunting. It goes hand-in- hand.“You can go on a turkey hunt first thing and then go look at a tract of timber with a fellow. It doesn’t get any better than that.”